Huh. Who knew. I spotted the new Tropicana package design a couple weeks back. I am a bit of a packaging hound so I tend to be aware of changes like that. Well, frankly I just wasn’t enthralled. My impression passing by the display and seeing the block of orange color on the front is that they were trying to ride that retro-in -packaging wave that I keep seeing pop up everywhere. Yawn.
However, I just read an article on Brandweek with an accompanying picture of the packaging. Turns out the block of color on the front is actually a picture of a glass of orange juice that wraps around the side of the carton. This fact was totally lost on me when I walked by the display. I am guessing the same is true for others. If you think about how juice cartons sit side by side on display shelf you’ll realize that you don’t have an opportunity to view the sides of the cartons. So the fact that the image wraps the side, while perhaps graphically clever, is really lost in real world in-store display.
This is just of course one woman’s opinion. Go take a look at the article Tropicana Squeezes Out Fresh Design with a Peel and next time you are in the grocery store glance at the Tropicana display. Let me know what you think.
Update: Well I had no idea, but apparently I wasn’t the only one not digging Tropicana’s new look. According to a New York Times article by Stuart Elliott Turns out the backlash against the change to PepsiCo‘s flagship product’s appearance was big enough that they are dropping the new look and reverting back to the classic one. Yay!
